In the next few days/weeks, I will be recapping some of the hilarious and/or edifying things I encountered on my trip to Iceland. For one thing, they still have Tab there!They may still have Tab in the US, but if so, I never see it. You can imagine my excitement at finding it in the Icelandic supermarket, 10-11 (which are its hours, decidedly less ambitious than our own 7-11). It only cost $4.50 a bottle, which by Iceland standards is eminently fair. Especially for Tab!

After buying the Tab I ran back to my guesthouse, not wanting to experience such a personal moment as drinking Tab for the first time in 17 years with any but my own company. After locking the door and drawing the blinds, I opened the Tab. I then drank the Tab.

5.24.2006

Arrived this morning at 6 am local time. It was blazingly day time. Blogging now at 11:30 pm. It is still blazingly day time...

Though I have set myself as a kind of arch-deacon of malaproprism for New Haven, I have to say it is great to get out of that racially divided, town-gown divided, rich-poor divided cess pit for a breath of clean Nordic air. Landing in Iceland was honestly like landing on an alien landscape; sans trees, sans grass, sans human traces save the odd road or house. The drive from Keflavik to Reyk. was like a journey back into my past, over horrible obstacles and bitter wastes towards a shining city of the future...

In any event, pictures will be posted in the next few days. We spent a nice afternoon at the great Reykjavik record shop 12 Tonar (amazingly they had no Nos Marquis in stock...), then wandered about enjoying the sites. Tomorrow we are going to do the tourist thing, then this weekend we are going to watch a concert featuring Mt. Eerie (nee Microphones) of Anacortes, WA.

The best part of all of this is that for once I actually look like a native. Moreso even than in Ireland people just seem to naturally assume I am one of them, which is better... So far no one has even asked me about GWB... More soon, so much more, so soon.

5.10.2006

They are flickering fast, gentle friends, diligent friends, the reels of time are nearing their final cut, their final flip through the pathetic camera of life.

Apocalypse, you say? No, no nothing so dramatic. Quitting the blog again only to return again? No, that is stale, boring.

Friends the real trouble is this: my vampiro-prophetic powers are at an all-time low ebb. It has been weeks since I have feasted upon the neck of an unwitting undergraduate, months since I last turned the tarot cards, years since I last overturned my magic eight-ball to reveal the favorite message "Drink Blood."

For several months I jokingly alluded in casual conversations between friends to a potential trip to Aruba for the one year anniversary of the Holloway disappearance. This, this, I thought, would rid my soul of this bottomless malaise, this would light the fury of my songwriting flame to new tallow melting heights, this, this is the thing!

But fate has spoken, and as usual, its bellowing cat-call is a shrieking "No!"Plans have shifted. Instead of going south I must go north, out into the frigid Atlantic frontier. In short, the gods have decreed, I must go to Iceland!

Iceland, you may know, is a volcanic Atlantic island nation first settled in 870 by the Vikings. Icelanders were converted (by decree) to Christianity in 1000. Etc.

I am going to Iceland to live deliberately, in a youth hostel. I plan to also sample the curds and whey of the local milk farmers. I'm also going to devour a seal, live. Plenty of pictures to come, but the trip is not until the end of the month, so I may post some frivolous trivialities here sooner or later.

Oh, and to the Anonymous who didn't like my Luke Perry/James Dean SaB, all I have to say is: Get honest.

5.03.2006

5.02.2006

A Harvard sophomore's novel, pulled from the market last week after the author acknowledged mimicking portions of another writer's work, appears to contain passages copied from a second book.

A reader alerted The New York Times to at least three portions of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life that are similar to passages in the novel Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella.

While the plots of the two books are distinct, the phrasing and structure of some passages is nearly identical, the Times reported Tuesday.

In one scene in Can You Keep a Secret, which was published by Dial Press, the main character, Emma, comes upon two friends "in a full-scale argument about animal rights," and one says, "The mink like being made into coats."

There are also similarities in details and descriptions. Jack, the love interest in Kinsella's novel, has a scar on his hand; so does Sean, the romantic hero in Opal. Jack has "eyes so dark they're almost black." So does Sean.

Can You Keep a Secret was published in 2004, more than a year before Little, Brown signed then 17-year-old Viswanathan to a reported six-figure deal to write Opal and another novel.

Viswanathan did not return a call for comment Tuesday. She refused comment to the Times.

Last week, Little, Brown announced it would pull copies of Opal after dozens of similarities were found with two novels by Megan McCafferty.

Viswanathan acknowledged borrowing from McCafferty's work but claimed it was unintentional.

Kinsella's book was published by Dial Press, which is owned by Random House Inc., as is McCafferty's publisher, the Crown Publishing Group.

Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his company won't be commenting further on the matter.